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21 results for Personality Disorders

The weather has been ‘bipolar’ this week, a neat and tidy friend has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and someone who tried to chat you up in a bar was as awkward as someone with Asperger’s.

Using mental health terms as if they are clichés has become commonplace in the past few years, we hear them dropped into conversation as though they are just any other word, but as much as the people who say them don’t do so out of malice, are they accurate and more importantly, are they acceptable?

Much research has suggested that using mental health terms to describe personality traits is becoming increasingly common, with a 2007 study of the terms “schizophrenia” and “schizophrenic” in the UK media revealing that 11% of the references were metaphorical.

According to consultant psychiatrist Arun Chopra who works at Queen’s Medical Centre based in Nottingham, using these terms so flippantly can have a negative impact upon...

The child has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a condition that means an individual believes they are not the gender they were born with.

A ten-year-old child, born as a boy, has returned from the summer holidays dressed as a little girl.

The child’s mother has explained to the press that, growing up, her daughter always felt uncomfortable dressing in boy’s clothes because she had a girl’s mind trapped in a boy’s body.

Before the summer holidays, other children knew their classmate as ‘him’. When they returned to school, they were gathered in an assembly and told that their friend has become a girl, and that they must now refer to him as ‘her’.

Relatives and teachers have praised the child for revealing the new look to her classmates, despite having apparently suffered verbal abuse and bullying at the hands of some outraged parents.

Research has revealed that individuals suffering from serious mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia can have a life expectancy significantly lower than the national average, reports BBC News.

A london based study which tracked electronic medical records of over 30,000 patients found that many people were dying early from stroke, heart attack and cancer as opposed to suicide or violence.

Experts looking into the life expectancy of patients who were suffering from specific mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or serious depression, found that life expectancy...

New research has suggested that there are a number of children out there, bright, polite and academically sound who outright refuse to go to school and no it is not a clever play on truancy it is a very real and genuine phobia of the classroom.

School Phobia is a condition which is currently estimated to affect between one and five children in 100. The little known condition was recently highlighted in the press, when a judge ordered Suffolk County Council to apologise to parents of a 16 year old boy for prosecuting them for keeping their son off school, despite evidence from his GP and psychologist that he had a genuine phobia of school.

Sufferers are not simply playing truant, but simply can’t face going to school. Sometimes their symptoms even manifest on a physical level, causing stomach cramps, headaches, nausea and panic attacks and behaviourally they may display temper tantrums.

Brain patterns could now give a valuable insight into youngsters who run a possible risk of becoming ill, reports the Daily Mail.

A team of British scientists from Nottingham University have found specific patterns of brain activity which could be ‘makers’ of those who will go on to develop mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. In addition to this they have said it may be possible to one day use this information to help youngsters before they begin to develop symptoms.

Lucie Russell, Campaign Director for mental health charity Young Minds agree’s that the possibility of predicting the risk of young people developing mental illness could be very useful. However, she also highlights how gene testing comes with the risk of labelling children and believes that a stable and loving background is still a huge factor in a child’s well-being and emotional...

For many years there has been a stigma attached to mental illness which often sees people going to great lengths to avoid being diagnosed. However recently a new phenomena has arisen with some people actually asking to be diagnosed with a mental illness, reports BBC News.

The stigma attached to mental illness has been around for a long time, but it seems a new group of people have arisen who are actively seeking out diagnosis of a mental illness, but why?

Psychiatrist Dr Diana Chan and Dr Lester Sireling believe that increased public awareness through mediums such as the internet, radio and T.V plus an increase in the willingness of celebrity figures to discuss their own experiences with mental illness has lessoned the stigma.

This is fantastic news for those who were previously concerned about seeking help for the disorder but there are a large number of individuals diagnosing themselves with the disorder before seeking advice from a...

Former boxer Frank Bruno has spoken out about living with a mental illness, reports the Times.

Last week during an interview with Radio 4’s Today programme, former boxer Frank Bruno opened up about being diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and how he coped living with the illness for years.

He told Radio 4 of the breakdown in his marriage which led to difficulties with his children which eventually proved too much for him causing a breakdown and eventually leading to his bipolar diagnosis.

He explained how the condition often made him behave in bizarre ways. “It makes you high, it makes you low, it makes you cry, it makes you race,” he said. “It is a very horrible thing and when it is at its height, you do some stupid, silly little things. You make comments and you make phone calls at night time. You are aware of what you are doing but you can’t stop...

A programme aired on BBC2 yesterday evening aimed to highlight how the authorities are playing down the number of murders committed by the mentally ill, reports The Independent.

The head of the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Health Problems (NCISH) has said that approximately 50 people a year who had been in contact with specialist mental health care in the 12 months before the incident were convicted of homicide.

The statistics are not accurate. If one person was responsible for a homicide where there was more than one victim then it would still only count as one incident and then you have to take into account that sometimes the person who committed the homicide then commits suicide, resulting in no conviction so no statistic.

A fascinating show recently aired on BBC Radio 4 about the emotional effect of taking a stand if someone you love has a mental illness.

The show focussed on the lives of William and Kate Lyons’ a young married couple whose experience with bipolar disorder radically changed their lives.

According to the mental health charity Mind, two thirds of the population will know somebody close to them who has experienced some form of mental illness.

Bipolar depression is an illness characterized by a mixture of delusional highs and disabling lows. After years of suffering but suppressing her symptoms through medication, Kate believed it was safe for her to stop taking her pills.

Unfortunately for both of them, Kate had not fully recovered from the illness and her illness began to have a dominating presence on their relationship.

One day when William realised he could no longer cope with the situation on his own he took a stand...

A recent article featured in The Guardian has exposed fears that taking antidepressants may change aspects of a persons personality.

The personality traits we inherit from our parents often have a huge bearing on our chances of becoming depressed. Neuroticism means that a person has a strong tendency towards negative emotions and emotional instability and scientists believe that this is one of the main links to depression.

Selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are used to treat depression by boosting the amount of a chemical called serotonin in your brain. Doctors previously thought that SSRIs boosted mood by increasing levels of serotonin in people whose levels were depleted. People who have used the medication reported positive effects such as feeling more sociable, less emotional and an improvement in mood but upon reflection, doctors have said these side effects could be a result of changed personality.